Deliberate massacre, not 'crossfire' killing Tamil civilians - MP

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 04 February 2009, 18:33 GMT]Criticising international media reports for suggesting Tamil civilians are caught in a ‘crossfire’, TNA MP for Vanni S. Kanagratnam Wednesday said the Sri Lanka Army was shelling deep into Tamil Tiger controlled territory and deliberately targeting hospitals and internally displaced people. “Scores of Tamil civilians are being killed every day. But the civilian victims are not on or near the frontline as some international media is reporting. These people, inside safety zone, away from the frontline and they are being deliberately targeted by the Sri Lankan military,” he said.

“PTK and its hospital is the present objective of the Sri Lanka military’s scorched earth offensive,” he said.

“International actors and media who suggest that the civilians are somehow caught between the combatants or caught in crossfire and so on are deliberately misrepresenting the situation.”

“This misrepresentation serves to absolve the Sri Lankan state of any blame for the killing and maiming of hundreds of Tamil people every week. It also serves to conceal, deliberately or unintentionally, the genocidal logic of firing thousands of shells at civilian areas – especially after arbitrarily designating these places as a so-called safe area so as to draw civilians into it," the MP charged.